


Is Not Love

by FluffyBeaumont



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:59:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyBeaumont/pseuds/FluffyBeaumont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What no one will ever know is how he is beaten, how he endures the beatings, how he knows he cannot ever leave - and hates himself because of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is Not Love

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove – William Shakespeare

  


Did _he_ do that to you?

\- Prof. Stokes, _House of Dark Shadows_

The first time was the worst, because he was so unprepared. The pain of the first blow was horrible beyond anything he had ever known. When he awoke – later, alone, in darkness – he wondered if he had died, but then the shadowy figure in the corner of his room moved, and Willie understood.

  


”I’m sorry.” It was barely a whisper, a breath of sound carried on the night wind. “I am…so very sorry.” He couldn’t be entirely certain, but the voice was weeping bitterly.

  


”Barnabas?” Willie strained to see him in the dark, but the vampire was a shadow among shadows.  
  


The second time it happened was entirely unexpected: Willie had dropped one of Naomi’s antique plates, and then watched in horror as it shattered into a million glistening shards. A hand reached out, grabbed his collar, yanked him savagely backwards while the other hand beat him: over and over, raining blows on his unprotected face and head until he cried that he was sorry, he was sorry – until, finally, he didn’t know what he was sorry for. He found an unused storage space underneath the stairs and crawled in, pulled his darkness in after him, and sat there, waiting.

  


”Willie…” Barnabas’ face appeared. “What are you doing?” And then, when realization finally took hold, “Ah. Yes. Will you come out?”

  


His face was very grave as he led Willie to the kitchen, sat him on a chair and bathed his wounds with cool water drawn directly from the ancient stones. He was sorry, he said; he was so very sorry. He felt horrible about things; he would never do it again.

  


The third time it happened, Willie was ready. He lay still under the vampire’s assault, disciplined himself to silence while his body wept blood and tears. Barnabas wept, too, kneeling at the side of Willie’s bed: it would never happen again. It would never, ever happen again.

 _Yes,_ Willie thought, _it will. And I am powerless to leave you._

**Author's Note:**

> The question Prof. Stokes asks in _House of Dark Shadows_ , when Willie opens the door is, _Did he do that to you?_
> 
> I've always believed that the beatings Barnabas doles out - at least in the beginning - are evidence of domestic violence. Willie is, as Prof. Stokes so astutely notices, a battered spouse.


End file.
